What had happened was this. She had seen him fight. She had seen him lose. She had changed her mind about him. Or so he thought. Maybe she had planned this from the start. To humiliate him. She was with the bully again. He hated her. No, he didn’t hate her. He loved her. But he hated everyone else. He hated himself. He hated the world. Hate was such a strong word. No, it was hate that he felt.

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“I hear he was sent by the Pakis”

“God, I hope they send people. Get rid of the troops the Hindus are sending.”

Ahmed kept his counsel and listened with growing dread. He maintained a calm composure that belied how he was actually feeling. Inside there was a storm. A thunder that raged wildly, sparked fires. A biblical flood that drowned out all joy. Inside, he was scared.

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He smiled as her fingers brushed his. Inside, he was happy. Joyful. He felt as if his mind were a haze, his life before this, he had been living in a fog, and now it had been blown away. He had been living life before in black and white, and now there was color. Dull, drab, boring. Now, it was significant, meaningful.

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People were walking to the mosque, some muttering prayers under their breath, others joyfully clapping one another on the back. Chappals were squeaking underneath freshly rinsed feet. The breezy playful air was making the water evaporate and making people feel colder than it actually was outside. The calls to prayer were lilting and soothing. The maulvi didn’t feel the need to shove them down anyone’s throat and you could tell. Ahmed looked at the mosque, one small room, with a courtyard around back. Enough room for most people to stand and then some. It was cleaned by volunteers after maghrib prayers. They just signed up on the sheet by the door. He should do it too, it had been a while. It was good community building.

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It was a hot day. She sat on the edge of the ground and sobbed into her hands. Her chest heaved. Her hair was around her face, as if trying to shield her from the outside world. Every muffled song that he imagined from that far away felt like a stab in his heart. Every second that ticked felt like he was going miles deeper towards his own personal hell.

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The television flickered for a few seconds before it obeyed the command from the remote to shut off. Static glistened for a few seconds after that on the blank screen before it went silent.

Ahmed day on the couch, worried. He had been awake, he had been worried about something he had read in the news that day.

He looked out the window. It was a full moon. A beautiful full moon. He could see a big shape outside his window, a curious hangul peering in. Then leaping away. Limber, his horns magnificent and beautiful.

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He sat in a room clenching his fists. Eyes brimming with pain. Red rimmed. Ears hot. Nose smelling blood. Heart pounding in his ears. Fists clenching tighter and tighter. Sunlight was slowly giving way to the darkness of the night. He sat in his room crying in his heart. From outside, he could hear shouting.

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Ahmed walked the streets on his way back. The wind was fresh. The skies were cloudy. The rain from yesterday had cleaned up the atmosphere. His fingers tingled with the cool fresh air. It was nice walking up these hills. It was good for the health. He had studied in some of the big cities in the world. And they had no hills. No places to walk. They were too busy to live. Too busy to breathe. It was self induced busy-ness. They didn’t need to be. Yet they were.

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His father had some business with the Sheikhs and the Sheikhs had taken them to see this. The men were leering, mouths wide open, eyes sparkling with hunger. Stars twinkled in the night sky. The air was fresh in the desert breeze. Altaf kicked a rock and sullenly looked at the woman. The images would stay with him forever. He had never seen a bare stomach before. She was only wearing a tiny something that covered her chest. Her stomach was bare and on display. It glistened. She was so close to them, to the Sheikhs that he could smell the oil that made it gleam. His feet had been playing with a few rocks, now they were still. The woman had olive skin. Her eyes were filled with a manic glow. Her covered chest was heaving with the exertion. His stomach was flat. She twirled and danced around impossibly to some Arab music. Spectators cheered. Some jeered. The latter were mostly Arabs.

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He looked at his son, tousled his hair. The child smiled. And he hugged him tight. Tears forming in his eyes and love threatening to make his heart explode. The two countries were at war. He did not want his son to grow up in a world like this. He wondered what would happen to the valley. His wife did not think his concerns were valid. His best friend did not think his concerns were valid. But he knew the history of man. And man is doomed to repeat his mistakes. Especially when politicians follow the braying of the loudest, not the voices of the many.

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With a roar, it leapt into the sky. His ears popped. His mother gripped his hand and squeezed. More for her than for him. He could hear her murmuring prayers from beside him. His father shifted a little on the other side of his mother. His closed eyes frowned. He had fallen asleep a few minutes into sitting down. Altaf could not imagine how someone would fall asleep in a thing like this. It was so new, so novel. The smells, what did it smell of? Warmth and cold air being pushed in. And stale air. He could smell something baking somewhere. The sound of that selfsame air. And the roar of the engine. The whistling of the wind it barreled through. The feel of the cheap plastic handlebars. And the itch inducing seats in front of him. The people all around him. They were all his own. Most of them were reacting like his mother and him. Praying. Or looking around with unbound curiosity.

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Once it had been pretty. The carcasses of that beauty still remained. Once it had smelled of roses and echoed with song and laughter. Now it did not.

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The sun bore down harshly on the dilapidated city. The sky was foggy. The wind was howling. The ground was torn asunder. Used bullets lay burned up and gleaming, everywhere, if one only had the eyes to see. The smell of cigarette smoke, of gunpowder, of blood and death, and poverty populated the air. Some places were not so bad. Some places were even good. Places like defence were cities in their own. Magnificent mansions, spread out over huge pieces of land. Even the coastline, the sea attached to it seemed different there. Sparkling, free of garbage. Clean. Smelling of natural sea. But most of the rest of the city, just as the rest of country, most of it anyways, had fallen into decay and further into poverty. Huge plots of land filled with colorful pieces of plastic, and wrappers and garbage. Greenery growing out sparsely, but reclaiming land that had been turned into makeshift garbage dumps. Goats let loose in these places, chewing at the greens bleating as they spoke to one another. Sorting through the garbage. Roads so crowded that thirteen miles would take you thirty minutes. Camels, rickshaws, pickups, big fancy cars. All stuck at the same lights. Under the hot sun and the unflinching wind. The inhabitants of those metal beasts always hyper aware. Anyone could come by at any time on a motorcycle, the only vehicles that moved at any decent pace in this city, could point a gun at you and take from you all your belongings. The best thing to do in this situation was to give them.

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Roses littered the place. Gulaab kay baagh which was basically indicative of this place. In fact, if anything it looked like what the rose garden of heaven would look like. And smell like. The ground was tough and uneven but it was natural. It felt like this place was frozen in time in a time that most people would feel inside their hearts nostalgic for. Even if they had not lived through such a time. If nostalgia is optimism looking backwards, then this place was that feeling personified. The huts were clean and smell. The chai was strong, pink, and the aroma carried around. The air was chilly and the people warm. The sounds of tractors from nearby fields, the sounds of the wind whistling as it whipped by. Grass on the sidewalks, on the streets, flowers sprouting up from unexpected places, making the heart go warm with delight.

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Sun glinting off of tall steel buildings, the scorching sun frowning in frustration as it tried to torment, unsuccessfully, the heads of those under it. Wind fought the heat, bringing with it salt from the nearby ocean. It smelled of the sweat ocean scent. Sand, and perpetually damp rocks. Every now and then, a huge roar in the sky and an airplane would land in the big airport in the city as people from all across the world stopped here. There were two major reasons. This was the hub of the world. A major port. People stopped from one place to another as part of their connection. Second, this place had great educational facilities. Iranians, saudis, Malaysians, Singaporeans. You name it, they had heard of the schools here. And they came here to study. You saw all ethnicities.

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“No, no, no, no, no”. Dr Arif Tendu murmured, agitated as he packed his things. The things he would need. The hammer lay by the big screen, gleaming, inviting him. It had been in his room since the start, in case he would need to use it. Outside, people sat waiting, a baby crying, the walls covered in shadows of people. “No, no, no, no, no, NO.” he shouted that last word. A few people jumped,

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From up above, the Beings Watched. They could not participate, but they could observe. They could not participate, but each was itching to. For after you have unrestrained power, you can not suddenly stop having it. After you are in the heavens, it is much harder to fall. They had not fallen. The room was locked up in space with no location. It was here, and it was there. It was everywhere, and it

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The storm raged ever stronger. The clouds were dry and blank, and yet, it was pouring rain like it was the end of the world. Once it had been like this. Only once before. When it was what humans know as Noah’s flood. Other than that, never at this scale. No one could have imagined it. It was beyond the wildest dreams of the people. The storm raged. Thunder cracked like a whip in the sky. Yellow,

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It stood in the forest, lone, tall, young. It was the only one that was new. It was the only one that liked humans. It was the only one that had been raised by them. The others hated humans as much as trees can hate anyone or anything. Let’s rewind. The sun shone bright and cheery, the air was fresh and clean, the trees breathed sighs of relief. They were only a few years old, but in thousands

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Drip, drip, drip.

Tap, tap, tap.

Like water from a broken faucet.

The sun was hot and harsh.

The ground was cracked and dry.

Everything was lit up as if by a thousand splendid suns. The mountains in the distance, the dust tornado seemingly far away. The few plants interspersed here and there.

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